


Ka Mate! Ka Ora!

by kaasknot



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Culture building, Gen, dances of challenge and welcome, ethnocentric biases, grief and mourning, group catharsis, haka, hongi - Freeform, idioglossia/cryptophasia, not actually te reo maori but it wants to be, offscreen/implied character death, rexsoka if you squint, the clones were played by temuera morrison okay, what more do you want from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 06:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6743809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaasknot/pseuds/kaasknot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Imagine the entire Torrent Company doing the haka"</p><p>In which the clones have a ceremony of their own to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ka Mate! Ka Ora!

\-- _Tipoca City, Kamino_

The Kaminoan scientists thought it was an aberration, at first. A defect. To them, perhaps, it was; they favored homogeneity in their product, and distinctions even as minor as names were discouraged. A language, and a dance to match, was something else altogether. They regarded the juvenile clones stomping their feet and shouting gibberish with distaste. Reconditioning was required. At least it was a single batch; they had been found before it could infect the whole battalion--or worse, the whole army.

“They know we’re watching,” Dr. Koma Re said, tilting his head to the side in curiosity. “Have they no concern for our reaction?”

“It is defiance,” his colleague, Dr. Pellu Da, answered. She was not curious. She was annoyed. Each batch represented a considerable effort of time; to have an entire six years’ work destroyed, or their training ground to a halt for reconditioning, was exasperating.

Koma Re listened to the words the clones were shouting, parsing out the morphemes and syntax. He was a linguist, brought to Tipoca City as a specialist to analyze this disturbing new defect. He and his colleague stood above the crèche in the observation decks, but speakers carried the clones’ chant to them as crisply as though they were standing below. “It has a consistent grammar and structure,” he said. “Fascinating. I have read of the phenomenon of cryptophasia among human twins, but I did not expect it to arise in this context. Perhaps I should have.” His head tilted to the other side. “I wonder what they're saying.”

“It's a war dance.”

The two Kaminoans turned to regard their companion. Jango Fett stood beside them, gazing out upon the young clones with a stern, emotionless expression.

Except--no, not emotionless. There was a hint of a smile playing about his lips.

“Your pardon?” Pellu Da asked.

“It's a war dance,” Fett repeated. “They're telling their enemies to be afraid.”

The two Kaminoans looked to each other. “Perhaps it is Mandalorian? I understand some of the instructors have seen fit to impart their culture--”

“It's not Mandalorian."

Pellu Da wafted her hands in exasperation. “Then how could you know what they're saying?”

Fett gazed down upon the clones. They were moving in perfect unison, stamping their feet, slapping their chests, making absurd faces. One stood before the rest, leading the chant. Fett didn’t look away from the boy as he answered. “Maybe it's in our genes.”

“There is no evidence that--”

“A word of advice,” Fett interrupted. “If you want your army to survive, let them keep that dance. They'll fight twice as hard if they've got something to fight for.” He paused, looking back at the leader. “And put that one on the command track.”

He put on his helmet and walked away.

***

\-- _The_ Negotiator _, in orbit above Ryloth_

It wasn't like any welcoming committee he recognized. Mace Windu stood, arms crossed, on the catwalk above the _Negotiator_ ’s cargo bay. Master Obi-Wan Kenobi stood at his side, a faint smile on his face as they watched the 91st Reconnaissance Corps and the 212th Attack Battalion take turns shouting at each other across the flight deck.

They weren’t just shouting, Windu noted. Commander Ponds stood at the front of the Lightning Squadron, his helmet off, glaring down Commander Cody and the 212th where they stood with their arms linked around each other's backs. When Ponds raised his open hand, all the men behind him raised theirs in unison. When he slapped his elbow with his other hand, it was to the sound of two hundred other slaps echoing through the cargo bay. He shouted a sentence in a language Windu didn't recognize; this seemed to be a call to action, and the 91st leapt forward, landing in deep squats, slapping their thighs and breastplates rhythmically as they chanted. They stretched their eyes wide, thrust out their tongues, bared their teeth, made their faces into caricatures. None of them wore their helmets. Mace Windu wondered if it was their sameness that prompted them to exaggerate their expressions, to declare their individuality however they could.

“Have you never seen them perform the Ke Mata before?” Kenobi asked.

“No. Is it common?”

The shouting had subsided into hissing. The 91st was advancing on the 212th, their hands raised as though carrying spears. The 212th didn't seem threatened. Cody stood stern and solemn, his scar almost invisible in the dim light of the hangar deck; the men around him, linked arm-in-arm, were less impassive. Some smiled the feral pre-battle grins Windu had come to recognize; some pulled their faces into the same rictuses the 91st were making, opening their eyes until the whites showed and hissing in return.

“It's not uncommon,” Kenobi replied. “They usually keep it amongst themselves, but the 91st and the 212th haven't worked together, before. They’re welcoming each other to the battle.”

Suddenly, Commander Cody let go of his fellow clones and marched right up to Commander Ponds, thrusting his face into the other’s; they pressed their foreheads together, glaring into each other’s eyes, until Ponds yielded, and Cody took the floor. A shiver ran down Windu’s spine. It was uncivilized, almost savage. Seeing Cody--a man he knew very little of outside of formal holos and quiet adherence to regulation--let his controlled guise slip to reveal a hint of the warrior beneath was almost shocking.

Windu turned to Kenobi. “What did you say it was called?”

“The Ke Mata.”

“Is it Mandalorian?”

Kenobi shook his head. “I've cross-referenced it against every known language. It's not Mandalorian. It has similarities with several Alderaanian dialects, and the Devaronians have a few similar traditional dances, but those correspondences seem more accidental than deliberate. As far as I can tell, this display is entirely original.”

The chanting rose to a crescendo, and the Force rippled with the energy the clones were raising. Windu watched, arching a brow. “I’m surprised the Kaminoans let them keep it.”

“It doesn't seem their style,” Kenobi said wryly. “Too messy and human for their sterile efficiency.” He stroked his beard and stared down at his men.

Below, the clones had fallen silent. Windu turned and saw that they were now standing amongst each other, touching their foreheads to one another's. Some weren't content with mere touches, and head-butted each other amidst laughter and happy grins. Ponds and Cody stood in the middle, mimicking their pose from earlier; but where before they had been aggressive and territorial, this gentle press of nose and forehead was almost tender. They spoke quietly, their troops mingling about them. Windu couldn't hear what they said, but Ponds grinned, and then they parted. The sense of brotherhood, of unity and love, was so strong and present through the Force that Windu bowed his head.

“I know,” Kenobi said softly. “It's beautiful.”

***

\-- _The_ Resolute _, in orbit above Geonosis_

“Hey, Rexster,” Ahsoka said, dropping her tray opposite his on the table.

“Commander,” he said in reply. They were in the mess, in the lull after the changeover from besh shift to cresh shift. There were a few other clones around--a clump of pilots in a corner, a pair of gray-suited bridge officers hunched in an intense debate over a datapad. It was quiet. The Second Battle of Geonosis was over, won in favor of the Republic, and the 501st rested as Skywalker awaited new orders.

Ahsoka bit into a piece of stewed limma. “I've got a question.”

Wouldn't be the first time. The Commander had a lot of questions. Usually she just came out and asked them; this time, it was almost as though she was asking for permission. Rex carefully set down his cup. “Not sure I’ll have an answer, if it's as heavy as you’re making it sound.”

“No, it's nothing bad, just.” She poked at her rations for a moment before she braced herself and looked him square in the eye. “In the cargo bay, just before we loaded up for Geonosis.” She bit her lip, and Rex had a strong suspicion he knew what she was talking about. The korokio. He resisted slumping; his armor wouldn't have let him, anyway.

He didn’t blame her. The Jedi were a curious bunch. It seemed embedded in their natures the way obedience was in the clones’. They wanted to know the clones’ names, their childhoods, anything they had that they liked. Their favorite _color_. Rex hadn't known he was allowed to like one color over another until General Skywalker had asked him if he liked 501st blue.

But the Mataori, that was _theirs_. It transcended individual identity. It was more than just him, more than just Torrent Company, more than the 501st. Some of it was Mandalorian, but more of it was their own. No one knew who started speaking the Tongue. No one knew who’d first stamped their feet and shouted. Some said it was the Null-ARCs, some said it was the batch that disappeared last week-month-year. Every clone knew the Ke Mata, and knew at least one korokio. Every clone could speak in the Tongue and know his brothers would understand. If the clones had a culture, the Mataori was it, and that, along with their armor and their names, was all they carried with them.

Ahsoka must have seen his discomfort because she straightened, embarrassment darkening her montrals. “Forget I asked,” she said hurriedly. “Obviously it’s private, if you'd rather not tell me--”

“It was a prayer,” Rex cut in, making a split-second decision and committing to it.

Ahsoka stilled. “I--I didn't think you had a god.”

“We… don't, really. But you have your Force, the Mandalorians have their _manda_ ; why not us, too?” He felt his cheeks reddening. It was strange to talk about it so openly. The Mataori was something to pass on to younger brothers; it wasn't generally spoken of to non-clones. _Not because clones are better_ , he quickly cautioned himself. “We call it--” He swallowed. Old habits were hard to break. “We call it Punnumuhua. ‘The farthest march.’”

“‘The farthest march,’” Ahsoka said slowly. “I’ve heard you say that before. Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la. ‘Not gone, merely marching far away.”

“That’s the Mandalorian,” Rex said. “Some of us are more Mando than others.”

“I guess that makes sense. Jango Fett was a Mandalorian, but he could only teach so many of you.” She grew hesitant once more. “But… what _is_ Punnumuhua? Is it a place?”

“It's--it's _us_. All the brothers, living, dead, or not yet born. They stay with us, spirits with like spirits.” Rex shrugged awkwardly. “Maybe it's a daydream, but it's nice, thinking we still watch out for each other even when we’re dead.”

“Oh,” Ahsoka said, and she looked strangely sad. Rex kept talking, hoping to wipe that sad expression from her face.

“The korokio I did, that's asking the brothers who’ve already gone ahead to look out for us. Sometimes we ask for other things, but that's the oldest one. We’re soldiers; we’ll die. May as well ask for as much company as possible. That way we’ll never die alone.”

Ahsoka looked even more haggard, now. Rex looked down at his tray. _Good job, Rex_ , he said to himself. _This is why we don't tell anyone_.

“Do you do it before every battle?”

Rex looked up. Ahoska was watching him, her expression still sad, but she was smiling as well. He thought back to a dozen other battlefields, him and his brothers standing in a dense, packed circle, close enough that they could feel each other breathing. And in the middle, surrounded, almost impossible to see, was the tohuntira, the chosen leader. Rex was the tohuntira more often than not, these days.

“As many as we can,” he said. Whether the spirits of his dead brothers watched over him or not, he didn’t know. But going into battle without first hearing the breath of his living brothers felt hollow. He hated those battles.

Ahsoka nodded. Rex couldn’t read her expression; he was more used to reading his brothers’, and other faces still tended to elude him, especially when they were as jumbled up as Ahsoka’s was now.

“Commander?” he asked.

“What else can you tell me about--korokio?” She glanced at him, hesitant in her pronunciation.

“Korokio,” he answered, nodding. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything you need your commanding officer to know, to accommodate it.” Her expression was fierce. In that moment, Rex suspected he loved her, just a little.

They talked long into the ship’s evening. And whenever Ahsoka commanded a mission, she always made sure her troops had time beforehand to do what needed to be done.

***

\-- _Ryloth, in the highlands overlooking the plains_

“This will be a difficult battle,” General Di said, looking at the holomap hovering before them. “It requires more ordnance than I would like.”

“If the Republic would get us the supplies we need, it wouldn’t be a problem,” Cham Syndulla replied, his voice tense. It wasn’t the only thing that was; the entire briefing tent was on edge.

Captain Keeli glanced between the two leaders. He wanted to tell Syndulla to trust in the Republic, in the General, but it wasn’t his place. General Di made promises, and Cham Syndulla questioned them when they did not materialize. It was an ugly situation.

The plain truth of it was, the droid army was advancing, and the Twi’lek freedom fighters, even with the support of Republic Garrison reinforcements, couldn’t outmatch them. They had already retreated deep into Ryloth’s mountains and were pinned up against a canyon complex. What should have been an easy defense was turning bitterly hard by sheer dint of numbers. They simply didn’t have enough ammunition for all the droids that were coming. The meeting ended in a stalemate.

That night, camp was quiet. The clones were pragmatic about their chances--“Not a snowball’s chance, Cap,” Hak said cheerfully as he polished his rifle.

The Twi’leks were less sanguine. They sat about their fires, talking little, casting bleak glances towards the lights of the distant droid army. That was a bad sign, just before a battle. Keeli wasn’t a Twi’lek, but he _was_ a soldier, and he knew the importance of morale. If it was just his troops, he’d know exactly what to do. But what amped a freedom fighter?

The more he thought about it, the less he thought it mattered. Clone, Twi’lek; they were all in this battle, and they all had a little ball of anger, fear, and helplessness that was eating a hole in their bellies. He stood up from the rock he’d claimed and strode toward the center of camp.

“Be’aka huri eh maka A!” he shouted in his best drill sergeant voice. “To meha ke mata rangotea A!”

A few voices picked up the chant after him. Veterans, mostly; clones who had seen combat, and sung the Ke Mata more than once. “Be’aka huri eh maka A!” he bellowed again, puffing out his chest and letting his voice ring through the camp. A dozen more voices caught up with him this time, swelling into a proper mataori. All around, clones dropped what they were doing and joined the forming line. The Twi’leks watched them in confusion, sitting by their fires with scrunched brows and twisted frowns. Keeli waved at them sharply, urging them to stand. This was for his men, yes, but it was for them also. He pointed toward the distant lights of the droids, visible from their entrenched position in Ryloth’s highlands. “Ke mata eha du be’aka ha!”

“Punnumuhua ke’aka A!” his second, Mill, cried out. As one, thirty clones stamped the earth, raising their hands and bringing them down on their armored thighs. The sound of sixty gauntleted palms cracking over reinforced plastoid echoed over the hills. The enemy already knew their position; it didn’t matter if they were heard.

Still the Twi’leks weren’t standing. Keeli bared his teeth at a man. “Come on!” he snapped. “Droids ain’t gonna scare themselves!”

Then the stolid, bedrock presence of General Di came up behind them, joining their ranks and following their lead. The clones drew him in like one of their own. The Mataori wasn’t for non-clones, but right now that didn’t matter. They were all of them soldiers facing hard odds, every man and woman there, be they clone, Jedi, or Twi’lek. One by one the freedom fighters joined them, fleshing out their ranks until they were an arrow through the center of camp, Keeli at its point, aimed toward the plains and the droid army approaching. 

“Upahe’eaha!” Keeli thundered, slamming his open hands against his breastplate. “To meha ke mata rangotea A!”

All around him, pounding through his body, was the rhythmic stamp of feet. _Let them come!_ Keeli’s heart cried, and he leaped into the air. _Let them come! They will fall like fish into our nets!_

They danced for what felt like hours, until their voices went hoarse and their hands were numb from slapping. They danced until the anger and helplessness was spent, and the Twi’leks gazed over the foothills with hope, not despair. Keeli returned to his bedroll, his heart quiet. All around the troops were silent, tasting aay'han in one form or another.

General Di came up to him. “That was well done,” he said.

“It was the least I could do,” Keeli replied, shifting uneasily beneath the praise. “They needed a boost. I figured what was good for the men would be good for them, too.”

“A wise action,” the General said. “Our chances are no better than they were, but at least now they will have heart.” He went on his way, back to his tent. Keeli turned back to the camp.

“That’s why we do it,” he said to himself.

***

\-- _Western airbase, Umbara_

The men of Torrent Company and the 212th were already standing in formation when Rex came out onto the airfield, Cody by his side. They were in precise formation--gaping holes showed where their comrades should have been. Some lines were only missing a man or two, but every squad had lost someone. Almost the entirety of Ringo’s platoon was gone, and Ringo was, too. Cody’s troops were just as bad.

It wasn’t the worst battle the clones had experienced. Geonosis I and II had both been awful, in terms of losses. But never in the history of the 501st or the 212th had they been so severely hit by friendly fire, and for so malicious a reason. Kenobi and Skywalker stood to the side, observing; Skywalker’s face was drawn and sickly pale. Rex tried not to look at him. His anger was irrational and unfair, but knowing that didn’t make him any less angry.

Long lines of the dead had been laid out over the duracrete. The Umbaran fighters and Republic LAAT/is had been moved aside to make room. Their armor was dirty, smeared black with the soil of Umbara; there wasn’t a shiny among them, no matter how young.

The Jedi should have been _better_ than this! They had trusted them!

Enough. It was past time they begin. Rex inhaled deeply, and roared, through a throat already raw, “Be’aka huri eh maka A!”

“To meha ke mata rangotea A!” Cody answered him, and together they turned to face their fallen brothers. Behind them, the clones stamped their feet.

They danced. There was no choreography; it was ragged, emotional. Each man performed what moved through him. Overhead, the clouded skies of Umbara seemed to writhe in sympathy. Rex’s voice gave out halfway through, so furious was his shouting; Cody took up the slack. His wasn’t the only voice that faltered. More than one was choked with tears, or cracking like a seven-year-old’s. Rex had no more shouting to give, so he crushed Umbara beneath his heel, damning the planet that had taken so many of his brothers and damning Pong Krell for making it happen. He bared his tongue and shook his hands and slapped his arms and thighs, and he felt the grief and anger and confusion of his brothers. He was not alone. His brothers were gone, but he was not alone. 

That evening, aboard the flagships of the Jedi, in the cargo bays, the mess, the barracks, the training salles; wherever the clones gathered, there could be heard, in somber voices, the recitation of names. Some had a full piece of armor--a glove, a spaulder, sometimes a whole bucket. Some had nothing more than white chips of battered plastoid. All had something.

“Matchstick, Tag, Droidbait,” they said. “Mixer, Redeye, Charger, Longshot.”

Rex stood beside Jesse and Fives. “Hardcase,” they said, gritting their teeth against the pricking in their eyes and pressing their foreheads together one by one.

“Waxer,” Boil said to an empty bucket, his fingers trembling as they brushed over the drawing of a Twi’lek girl on the forehead. He pressed it against his own and felt the tears run hot down his cheeks.

“Dogma,” one man whispered to himself in the silence of the brig.

“Ridge. Cutup. Hevy. Fil. Havoc. Colt. Keeli. Hawkeye. Ponds. Echo. Denal. Oz. Ringo.”

Thousands of voices, whispering into the night: “And all the ones I can't recall.”

***

END

**Author's Note:**

> Happy early Star Wars Day! This fic was directly inspired by [this](http://kaasknot.tumblr.com/post/143786524049/i-aggressively-agree-with-you-on-clone-doing-the) post.
> 
> I chose to make up my own gibberish language inspired by te reo Maori, since I have no knowledge of the language and would in all likelihood butcher it shamefully if I tried to use it. Any similarities aside from the ones following are entirely unintentional.
> 
> Title from the opening words of the Ka Mate, translated as "It is death! It is life!"
> 
> In my conlang, "Mataori" more or less means "rituals," covering everything from the Ke Mata, my name for haka (and a thinly-veiled reference to the Ka Mate, an actual haka song) to the korokio, or prayers (lovingly ripped-off from the word "karakia"). The word "tohuntira" is a mashup of two Maori words, "tohunga," lore-keeper, and "rangatira," tribe leader/chief. The dance that Keeli and the Twi'leks do is inspired by the peruperu haka, a war haka; the one rex and cody lead after Umbara is inspired by the manawa wera haka, a mourning haka.
> 
> Aay'han is a Mandalorian concept, a feeling of commingled grief and love of family.
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](http://kaasknot.tumblr.com/post/143820662214/ka-mate-ka-ora-kaasknot-star-wars-the-clone)!


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